This is the big list. You’ve already seen highlights in music, blogs, and news. I broke off a separate post for two over achievers last week, and I’ll do two more for my personal favorites before the holidays end. I tried to cull this list down to a reasonable level. It’s still almost 100 videos, but I decided that that would be a shame to cut it down any more since there was a lot of good stuff this year. It’s already hard to choose highlights from the 64 routines, 63 separate couple spotlights, and five jam style contests at this year’s International Lindy Hop Championships, and I already mentioned how I favorited about 1000 Lindy Hop related videos on YouTube this year alone. Not making matters easier is how Facebook and YouTube both conspired to make the way I organized last year’s highlights impossible this time around.

This is a combination of dances that don’t quite fit any of the traditional jazz dances done by Lindy, Balboa, or Blues dancers. They’re either more modern or they are a combination of several influences into something new. I wish there was a term for that . . .

Here’s another performance I wanted to write about after ILHC. I mentioned previously how the 2006 ULHS Liberation division looms large over Lindy Hop, but the Solo Blues division from that year is another one that casts a long shadow. It’s almost a running gag to see how many ideas that Naomi introduced have been beaten to death in blues/slow routines since. This performance takes those conventions and turns them on their head. Instead of building up tension and releasing it in short bursts (i.e. successive slow movements followed by a sudden one) this whole piece is one long exercise in tension, and doesn’t let go until the end. Read the rest of this entry »

Karen mentioned ULHS 2005, but she’s a little too modest to mention her own accomplishments, so I thought I’d take this opportunity to share a few more videos from that event featuring our illustrious guest blogger.

She won the Jack & Jill division that year along with then DC-ite Luke Albao.

When I started my blog I read all kinds of nifty tips to make it awesome and get lots of people to read it. Oddly enough, all of them fail to advise you to post something actually interesting.

This may sound a bit conceited, but I think most of the stuff I post here is pretty interesting to read. Maybe not all of it. Just 98%, give or take a couple percentage points. I should know—I read it all the time, and I never get tired of me.

The two brothers are both in high school but are currently in a local production of Sophisticated Ladies, a musical based on the music of another DC native, Duke Ellington. The show is headlined by Maurice Hines, the brother of the late great tapper Gregory Hines. Here is is talking about discovering the two brothers.

In a previous post I said that I’d put up a few clips from a tape of Hop the Millennium but then decided that the whole thing was too good and uploaded the whole thing. The event took place over New Year’s 1999/2000 in Mexico City Ensenada, Mexico of all places.

There’s a lot of dancing goodness featuring the Rhythm Hot Shots which is the team that begat The Harlem Hot Shots. Southern California represents with a piece by Rusty Frank & Peter Flahiff and another by Peter Loggins & Lisa Ferguson. Keep an eye out for a pimpin performance by the father and son team of “Moke & Poke” a.k.a. Chazz Young and Frankie Manning.

Looks like all the news was coming out of Austin this weekend with the third Annual Lone Star Championships. Run by Tena Morales and Scott Angelius, this event is meant to be a more relaxed competition weekend with an emphasis on social dance contests such as Jack & Jill’s and Strictly comps.

I didn’t go, but that won’t stop me from saying a few words and gratuitously mention that <plug> I work for Tena on the International Lindy Hop Championships happening this year August 19th-22nd, 2010. Registration opening soon!</end plug>

Smaller scale competition events like Lone Star Championships are useful places for newer competitors to get a taste of what it’s like to be in the spotlight. There’s also the added benefit of doing it with the support of all your friends cheering you on.